It was a relief when Scorpius was finally finished his rotation on the third floor and moved down to the first. While talking first to James and then to Rose about the lunch that Sunday had made him feel much better about it, he still welcomed the distraction. As importantly, though, he and Rose hadn't talked about his specific career aspirations since he'd spoken to his father about it, but he knew it was still on her mind. He felt like a lot of the conflict would be pretty thoroughly mediated if she felt like he was coming at this from a more rational state of mind.

Thus far, Scorpius had managed to stop himself from pointing out that it was a little rich for iRose/i to be expecting rationality from anyone.

His optimism started to dissipate about two minutes after he'd sat down with Esme Banister, the Healer who supervised the entire floor, to discuss his education, experience, and demonstrated strengths and weaknesses.

Banister, whose sharp features and thick black hair pulled back tightly in a no-nonsense bun, came off as a little intimidating even before she opened her mouth. Once she did, things went from bad to worse - her voice was significantly more clipped than those of the Healers supervising the other three floors as she asked him quick, pointed questions that seemed to be aimed more at disqualifying him that getting at anything else. Despite his mounting irritation, however, Scorpius managed to keep his tone polite and respectful. He was nothing if not a pragmatist, after all, and he knew that rising to the bait wouldn't get him what he wanted.

Even if, by the end of the conversation, he would have loved to.

He briefly entertained the idea that her dislike was personal, but when he met Sawyer and Rebecca for lunch, they confirmed that they'd gotten the same treatment earlier that morning. Rebecca, who had been a fellow Slytherin at school, felt like she'd also managed to keep her composure, but Sawyer - who Scorpius had always felt was entirely too short-tempered for a proper Ravenclaw - had unfortunately been less successful.

"I know I should have just stayed calm," he said morosely, pushing his food around his plate. He seemed to have no intention of eating it, which at this point was probably a good thing - the mush that was left looked exceedingly unappetizing. "But when she started in on how I really didn't have much experience, I just kind of snapped."

"What did you say?" Rebecca asked. Unlike Sawyer, she had not lost her appetite; she was shoveling food into her mouth with the same speed she always did.

Sawyer made a face and let his fork drop to the table. "I asked her how many people idid/i have the kind of experience she seems to want, and where she'd dug them up from. After I said that, she got really chilly - chillier, I mean - and told me that a Healer who can't control his emotions is a liability that she doesn't want on her floor. He wrinkled his nose. "I don't want to be on her stupid floor anyway. I didn't really want to work with creature injuries anyway, but with this bullshit? Screw it. I'll get through residency and never speak to those assholes again."

"You don't know that they're iall/i assholes," Rebecca pointed out.

He made a face. "Yeah, well, their boss is, and I'm not signing up to work for someone like ithat."/I

"What's the deal with them, anyway?" Scorpius asked her. She'd been with the hospital for almost two years to their nine months, having completed a research residency before realizing that she really would prefer to deal with patients. Consequently, she sometimes had a better understanding of internal politics that either he or Sawyer did.

This time, however, she was as clueless as they were. "No idea," she told him. "All I can think is that they don't want anyone to slow them down." She laughed. "As if we'd want to get into the mess their floor is dealing with, anyway - thanks, but I'll skip the headache."

Scorpius gave a noncommital shrug and changed the subject. He hadn't actually told either of his friends that he was thinking very seriously about wading into the mess the first floor was dealing with, which was why he was feeling so thoroughly demoralized by their initial reception.

The next day was no better. Calla Wayne, one of the senior Healers on the floor, showed every indication of sticking him with all of the things he really wasn't interested in for his long-term plans - which would have been fine, since that was a good part of what residency was, except that she gave absolutely no indication that he'd iever/i be dealing with anything more complicated than minor pet injuries.

Under her very close supervision, he, Sawyer, and Rebecca spent the day in utter tedium that even Sawyer admitted had him longing for potions prep. First, they took turns examining people who had come in after being bitten or scratched by their pets: Scorpius's charges were a six year old girl whose father admitted she'd been grabbing their kneazle's tail all morning before it finally swatted at her, leaving several fairly shallow scratches on her arm, and a young man whose new crup-hybrid puppy had bitten him when he'd trodden on the poor creature's tail.

The very best that could be said about these patients was that at least neither case seemed to involve an animal that was actually dangerous; Scorpius wasn't an animal person in general, but he still hated to be part of removing a beloved family pet from a home, even when there were genuine safety concerns. Sawyer was not as lucky; the woman he examined had been very cagey about how she'd ended up with a deep bite on her arm, and when he looked up her name in the registry of St. Mungo's patients, he found that her sister's crup had injured people on three previous occasions, including a couple Muggle teenagers.

Still, when he stopped in to see Wayne at the end of the day on Tuesday, he made sure not to let his irritation show.

"Do you have a schedule drawn up yet?" he asked.

She glanced up from her sheaf of parchment. "Schedule?" Her voice was as clipped and irritated as Banister's had been the day before.

"Yeah. You know, where I'm going to be, when I have to be here -"

"Oh. That." She put the stack down and rested her arms on her desk as she leaned forward. "Just plan to be here from 9-5. I'll tell you if that changes, but I don't foresee that happening. As for where you'll be on the floor…" She interlaced her fingers and shook her head. "To be honest, Mr. Malfoy, we'll probably keep you right where you were today. It's very busy here at the moment, and we don't really have time to babysit residents who are going to spend three months here and then disappear to other floors. There's too much to do."

He clasped his hands behind his back, hoping she couldn't see him digging his nails into his palms. "Well, I actually wasn't sure I was going to disappear to another floor. I'd like to stay here."

"Mm." She glanced back at the paperwork she'd just set down. It could not have been more obvious that she felt that she had far better things to do with her time than talk to him. "You haven't even had any experience on the floor, so I'm not sure what you'd be basing that on. This is a hard floor to work on. Trust me, you'll be better off elsewhere. Now, if that's all?"

His polite masked slipped. "Thanks ever so for your help." He stalked out before she could reply.

He spent a long time considering his options that evening. He icould/i just give up on the first floor entirely, but he didn't feel inclined to do that - it would be one thing for him to decide on his own that he didn't really want to deal with creature injuries after all, but for someone else to decide it for him?

No. That was just unacceptable, and he wasn't going to take it lying down - especially since he knew that their outright dismissal of him and his talents was stupid. He was igood/i at Healing, for a resident, and almost everyone liked him - he was iintentionally/i friendly and charming whenever he stepped through those doors, and he'd always been good at helping people along when he wanted to.

If he wasn't willing to give up on the first floor entirely - and he was pretty sure that he wasn't - he was going to have to do something to turn their animosity around soon. Sticking him with pet injuries for the next three months would definitely torpedo his chances of getting onto the floor even if they idid/i eventually change their minds. The only thing he could think was that Rebecca's joke about not wanting to be slowed down had hit closer to the mark than she'd intended - he knew from Rose that there was a lot of improvising going on right now in the field because creatures that were rare in their parents' adolescence had become far more problematic in recent years. It stood to reason that Healers were having to make similar adjustments.

Scorpius didn't even consider consulting Deverill about the matter; it was all very well to have a mentor, but if you got in the habit of running to your mentor to solve every problem for you, no one was going to take you seriously.

He was just starting dinner when someone knocked on his door. "Scorpius!" he heard his best friend call through the door. "Rose isn't there, right?"

"Nope!" he yelled back.

After a moment, the deadbolt slid back, and Albus burst in. Unlike Rose, he had no qualms about using the spell to unlock Scorpius's front door, though after the first time he'd walked in to find Rose in the kitchen clad in only one of Scorpius's shirts and her underwear, he generally made sure his cousin wasn't there before he did.

The door slammed shut. Clearly, Albus was not in a much better mood than Scorpius himself.

"I'm in the kitchen!"

As soon as Albus entered the kitchen, he slouched into a chair and let his head fall to the table with a very loud groan. "I hate my life."

"What happened?" Scorpius asked, glancing over at him. "Have you eaten?"

Albus's head moved. Scorpius wasn't sure whether it was a nod or a shake, but he decided to assume his friend needed food and pulled out another couple potatoes to skin.

"I hate training," Albus said through his arm. "I ihate/i it. Training is the worst. Bridget is the worst. This whole fucking thing is ithe worst."/I He slammed his fist on the table.

Scorpius eyed him warily. Albus could usually be counted upon to be kind, patient, and a little too wholesome - he swore so rarely that it was clear that something was seriously troubling him.

"What happened?" he repeated.

Albus finally picked his head up. His face was nearly as red as his hair. "Dad's just… being so goddamn ihard/i on me just because he doesn't want anyone to think he's playing favorites. I told you he'd been making me practice my occlumency with Bridget, right?"

Scorpius nodded. He thought that it was probably one of the stupidest ideas he'd ever heard in his life, and he'd heard some pretty stupid ideas before.

"Well, it's only Tuesday, and this week so far has been ithe worst./i I saw her on Sunday and we had a good time, even with Rose stopping by - glad to hear your lunch went okay, by the way - but this week it's been one question after another, and I'm iso damned sick of it./i Yes, I was a little awkward when I turned down dates in school. Yes, I've liked her since my fourth year. No, I'm not sure what I want from her, even ithough/i I know I like her. Yes, it was a little weird for me when my two best friends started dating. For fuck's sake, aren't iany/i of my thoughts my own anymore?"

Now Albus's ire was starting to make sense. "That sucks."

"Yeah, it does. IFuck./i I mean, I know I need to learn this shit, but isn't there ianyone/i who can do it who I'm not fucking sleeping with?"

"I take it you asked?"

Albus's scowl deepened. "Yeah. Dad told me that keeping her out should be good incentive and that I needed to learn how to 'control my emotions.' My father is the worst, too." He let his head fell back onto the table.

Scorpius tossed the chopped potatoes into a pan and waved his wand over it. As the heat started to emanate from the counter, he jerked his head toward the door. "Come on. Let's go sit in the living room, it's going to get hot in here."

Once they'd settled onto his couch, Scorpius sighed. "Is there anything I can do?" he asked.

Albus shook his head. "Nah. I don't know - I just wish there was someone good at legilimency I could practice with on my own, so I could just learn it without all this…" His voice trailed off and he sighed. "Anyway. How are iyou?"/i

"Er - awful, now that you mention it." Scorpius gave his friend a quick summary of his week thus far on the first floor. To his surprise, Albus was grinning by the end of it. "It's really not funny," Scorpius snapped.

Albus shrugged. "Yeah, Scorpius, it kind of is. You think they're writing you off because they think you can't handle the stress?"

"That's about right, yeah."

"So…" Albus spread his arms wide. I"Tell them about Rose./i I mean, for God's sake, your girlfriend is in the D.C.B., your cousin Alec is in Dragon Research, ime/i and Johanna are in the Aurors, Noah's in the Department of Mysteries… Scorpius, you're not a naive kid with no concept of the real world. If you're going to put yourself in a position where literally everyone you're close to is in a dangerous profession, you should at least use it to your advantage."

Scorpius considered that for a moment. Albus wasn't wrong. "Maybe. But how on earth do you suggest I bring ithat/i up?"

Albus shrugged. "You're a lot more calculating than I am. I'm sure you'll figure it out."

A/N: Huge thanks to Hehe, Annoyed At Rose, 4good, theharrypotterworld, Guest, Tedd. e. bare, whiteblue2912, badada15, yellow 14, Penguin Buddy, and Georgeanna for their reviews on the original chapter 9.

I know that this chapter doesn't include any Rose, but I'm hoping it's enjoyable anyway. I've never written Albus throwing a fit before - it was kind of fun!

Thanks for reading, and as always, reviews make me happy. :)

Branwen